It would seem odd that your average extremist ultra-nationalist would use a professional silencer. This comes from RFE/RL:
Svetlana Gannushkina of Russia's Memorial human rights center told RFE/RL's Russian Service that Markelov's murder bore the signs of a hired killing.
"This could not have been accidental, and there was certainly no criminal motive behind it," Gannushkina said. "Unfortunately, we cannot conduct our own investigation. We can only demand that the law enforcement bodies do it. But our capabilities, our mechanisms, so to speak, of making such demands are unfortunately very, very weak. All we can do is express our indignation and try to find out who threatened Stanislav, when, why, and how." (...)
In an interview with RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, Kungayev -- who now lives in Norway with this four remaining children -- said he believed Budanov was behind the slaying.
"We, the whole family, are shocked and speechless. There is no doubt that my lawyer was killed by Budanov and his gang. I feel sorry for this professional [lawyer]. A person is killed in broad daylight in Moscow and the criminal escapes," Kungayev said.
"Budanov and his gang are behind it. [Markelov] told me last Thursday he was being threatened with death if he didn't drop Budanov's case," he adds. "As soon as the murderer [Budanov] got out of prison, they killed this man, this professional [Markelov]."
With all due respect to this poor girl's wretched father, it doesn't make the least bit of sense to suggest that Budanov would wait until he defeated the lawyer who wanted him kept in prison by winning his freedom and only then kill him. Surely, if he felt the lawyer was that kind of threat, he would have killed him earlier.
Are we once again going to be led astray looking for the trigger man and blaming low-level functionaries for what is obviously the Kremlin's policy?
How many deaths will it take till we know that too many Russians have died?
Didn't you leave a comment on that quote from Budanov's lawyers which claimed he had nothing to do with it? I guess he was telling the truth then?
This is like Politkovskaya II. We'll never have any truth, and maybe at best, the trial of a scapegoat. The conditions of impunity that made the brazen murder of Markelov possible are the responsibility of the state and the structure of power and arbitrary law it has built.
I said that the comment from his lawyers was idiotic because it implied that if he had been involved they would have admitted it.
He may well have pulled the trigger for all I know, although it's completely insane so are many other things in Russia. The point is that it doesn't make the least bit of difference who pulled the trigger, and worrying about such nonsense only helps the Kremlin. The point is, as you've said, who created the climate for these killings to flourish, whose crazed policy was it to let Budanov out in the first place, and who ultimately gave the marching orders here.
There's only one answer to the only questions that matter, and that answer is Putin.
We deploy this brutal murder. 3 months after the murder of the Craotian jounalist Ivo Pukanic, it shows again that freedom of press needs more supporters.
You know what I don't understand? Why nobody in Moscow cared? This wasn't a businessman who had got in the way of a business deal, or a gangster, or a banker who was involved in some shady dealings.
This was a good guy. Imagine if this was in NY? Bloomberg would be on the streets; Obama would make a speech; The NYPD commissioner would go visit with the family; it would be on the front page of all the papers; the FBI wuld get involved.
Here, a whimper. Why??
http://parallaxbrief.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/another-good-guy-slain-why-don’t-russians-care/
ANDREW: The sad fact is that many people do care -- they are filled with happiness that another "enemy of the state" has been liquidated. Don't you remember what Putin said when challenged about Politikovskay? He basically said "good riddance" and was annoyed only by the anti-Kremlin publicity.
I think the better question is why Markelov's friends didn't care more, starting with Robert Amsterdam and other attorneys. Why didn't this man have body guards around the clock, especially if he'd been getting threats? Can't the legal community, and clients like Khodorkovsky, fund such protection?
How about other heros, like Oleg Kozlovsky? Where is their protection? Perhaps bodyguards could not have prevented the killing, but certainly they could have helped apprehend the killer.
Seems to me that too many were to surprised by this event, too unprepared. Hopefully they will now learn from their error. We are at war. Time to fight, and throw away the silly moderation that has too often characterized this blog and undoubtedly led to a state of unpreparedness.
La Russophobe,
I'm not sure people know or care. OK, Robert said that there were a few hundred people laying flowers around the place he was shot today, but, frankly, at work me and an expat friend were the most outraged.
It was strange. "This is YOUR country, not mine, guys," I felt like saying.
The reaction was one of "Ahhhh... this is Russia," as if that's the way it has been, is now, and will always be.
I think SOME Russians do care, but only the very tiny portion of the country is politically active. The rest, the vest majority simply don't. And I simply don't understand why...